In a relay race, the trickiest stretch isn’t the finish line. It’s the exchange zone, where one runner reaches forward with the baton and the next reaches back without looking. Everything depends on one hand opening. This Sunday we’ll read the last chapter of Deuteronomy. Moses climbs Mount Nebo, and God shows him the whole land of promise, the place he has walked toward for forty years. Then God tells him he won’t cross over. Joshua will lead the people on. It’s a hard ending, but I’ve come to see the view from the mountain as a mercy. Moses doesn’t get to finish. He does get to see that the promise was real. Most of us have exchange zones of our own: a child leaving home, a job winding down, a role we’ve held so long it feels like ours. Come Sunday and we’ll think together about what it means to hold those things with an open hand.

It’s also Reformation Sunday. We’ll sing Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” and we’ll think about what it means for the church to be “always being reformed,” and by whom.

Sunday School takes place at 10:45am. Children should join their families in the sanctuary at 10:30; stay through Children’s Time before heading down to classes.

Nursery care available for children 4 and under.
Coffee Hour to follow worship.